Wednesday, 3 May 2017

Cold War Skirmishes

This is a side project initially started to practice stating up vehicles for Savage Worlds, though has since grown into a project in its own right. The basic premise is a series of books to cover the lesser well known conflicts of the Cold War period, give stats for equipment used and suggest game/campaign ideas (Weird Wars related or otherwise). The intention is to use existing Savage Worlds material where I can, but obviously fill in the gaps where I have to.

Cold War Skirmishes

An Iroquois helicopter from 9
Sqn RAAF in close support of Centurion tanks in South Viet Nam.

The format I'm intending to use is a nation 'core' book and a series of related supplement books that cover various conflicts that a nation was involved in. The core nation book will contain weapons, vehicles, uniform details, possibly common tactics and possibly new Edges/Hindrances. The supplement conflict books will give an overview of the conflict, suggested game/campaign ideas and maybe some adventures. The conflict books will list weapons used, possibly even give stats where they don't currently exist in current Savage Worlds material.

Going to be starting with the British since thats what I have the most knowledge about and have a good selection of actions during the Cold War to choose from. I won't cover Northern Ireland since that it is well known (being in the news for a good 30 years) and there are other factors to take into consideration. Vietnam also falls into the category of being well known, that said I cover the Australian and New Zealander involvement since that seems to be overlooked compared to the coverage of the American efforts during that conflict.

I'll use the ANZACs in Vietnam for a few examples, each would be useful for Tour of Darkness games.

Platoon Structure & Weapons

For the most part the Australians followed British military practice, but fighting in the Pacific during WW2 meant they had to develop their own military doctrines. Post-WW2 they fought alongside other Commonwealth forces in Korea, Malaya and Borneo. The latter two gave them the jungle warfare and counter-insurgency tactics they would put to good use in Vietnam.

The Aussies still employ the basic British platoon structure of three rifle sections (squads) and a HQ section. Dthe Vietnam War, a rifle section consisted of ten personnel comprising: 1 Cpl (Section
Commander) - 1 L/Cpl (Section 2i/c) - Scout Group(2 Pte) - Gun Group(2 Pte) - Rifle Group(4 Pte). The Aussies tended to rotate the job of scout round the members of the platoon whilst the New Zealanders tended to have specialist full-time scouts. The scouts would be armed with either 9mm SMGs or M16s.